Problems in Od Nua level 13

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Hi. I'm stuck in Od Nua on level 13 The Adra Animat is pounding me and I don't know which weapon or spell to use to defeat it. I used a sword of prix which I didn't think would do much and Eder is using a nice flail but neither help. My main character switched over to a fine two hand flail and that doesn't even work. I figured crushing is the way or maybe an arquebus but Kana died in the Hall of Warriors. I'm just stuck. Every time I turn this game on that same Adra animat hammers me and that spirit doesn't help but I have Eder use Whispers of Yenwood and it works quite well. When I play again I'll rearrange Aloth's spellbook and stop using Kalakoth's Miner Blights because it does an area of effect damage which hits my party. And how far down does Od Nua go? I want to get on with the game and get the Adra Sword for my main character. Am I close? And is the Master below an Adra Dragon? I loved this game and I'm not going to give up but this is getting frustrating...Thank you in advance.

My characters are level 9. And does the story end in Twin Elms? I have me Rube level 9 Fighter, Eder level 9 Fighter, Pellegina 9 Paladin, Durance level 9 cleric, Kara (A rogue I hired at an inn) level 9 Rogue and Aloth level 9 wizard. I might be too low to finish right now and these battles are getting tough. I thought the game ended in Twin Elms so I went back to caed nua to finish the quest. I can either continue the quest, end Caed Nua (which doesn't seem doable right now, too low-level) or do the Battle with lord Gathbin which seems tough. A while ago I posted about Ogre Shamans (about 6 of them) and rock beetles and adra beetles and a humanoid creature (female) that can turn a character to stone. I got hammered in these battles. The only way I made it to twin Elms was to completely avoid both groups. I handled the battle in The Hall of Warriors in Twin Elms after about 45 minutes with Kana (Who I liked) in place of Durance but Kana was killed so I replaced him with Durance. It was a tough fight but we won (most of my party went down). What is the level cap in PoE by the way? Hope this sparks a reply soon. Thanks Lillith21.

 

I was able to make it to the bottom at level 9. I had Durance in my party for ON but I booted him in favor of Hiravias later on as I thought Durance kinda sucked, why I don't remember. The rest of my party was: Wizard, Aloth, Eder, Kana, and Sagani.

Whenever you're using AoE spells you should try to keep your party positioned so you can hit without hitting them. Od Nua should be 15 levels, and you're correct on dragon. Sleep and petrify spells were stupidly powerful on release (the area ones in particular). I don't know how the balance has sussed out through updates but they may still be valid for super cheesing everything. The level cap for the base game should be 12, I don't know if White Marches increases it as I don't have it.

Have you checked over your equipment recently to make sure every character has the best setup you can manage at the moment?

 

Personally I think you just have too many warrior-type characters (4 of them, infact). Are all of them melee? You should consider making some of them ranged attackers.

The level cap for PoE is 12, 14 with the White March I and 16 with the White March II.

I think you just need time to adjust to the Pillars of Eternity meta.

General tips:

-Don't charge enemy groups, instead have one of your guys wave/shoot at them to get their attention and then to lure them some place where you have the advantage, like choke points against hard-hitting enemies or corners against spellcasters (because spellcasters need line of sight for their spells)

-Try to have at least one or two dedicated tanks. These characters should have close to 100 deflect (higher, ideally)

-Good deflect > damage reduction, you can heal through damage but powerful attacks like crits (which occur more frequently if your frontliners have low deflection/defenses) can very easily knock someone out of a fight

-Many enemies in the game like to use crowd control skills/disables, including the delemgans/adragans/adra beetles you mentioned. To counter these you need: "Prayer Against x" and other scrolls (which you can craft - see crafting menu), high fortitude/will/reflex defense (stack these as high as you can on the tanks), items like the Rings of Unshackling (allows you to cast the spell "Suppress Affliction" twice per rest, basically a temporary dispel) or a good priest (these are all priest spells)

-Pay attention to what debuffs your guys are receiving (just mouse over the icons to the right of their portraits at the bottom of the screen - that shows you the type of debuffs and the duration) and take appropriate measures to counter them. Durance should be invaluable for this, priest specialize in defensive/buffing spells. Learn to use his defection/defense-boosting spells and area of effect healing spells.

-Use debuffs of your own - Aloth should be spamming spells that inflict blindness/stun/paralyze/petrify/confuse/etc. Pay attention to enemy defenses and immunities (just mouse over them) and try use spells that target their lowest defense. As a general rule, casters have high will defense (so try to use spells that attack fortitude/reflex defense against these) and warriors have high fortitude defense (use spells that attack will/reflex defense). Because you have so many warriors, Aloth should by focusing almost exclusively on debuffing spells.

-Against enemies with very high damage reduction (like the Adra Animat) use effects that decrease damage reduction (Aloth's Expose Vulnerabilities, various item effects) or attacks that deal RAW damage (the raw damage type ignores damage reduction, Aloth himself should have a few spells that deal raw damage). Note that there are talents like Envenomed Strike (general) and Deep Wounds (rogue) that allow your warriors to deal raw damage. I strongly suggest getting these.

-On your damage dealers, try to stack as much accuracy on them as you possibly can - that means taking talents and using gear that increase accuracy (while Durance does has a lot of accuracy buffs, he should be spending most of his time casting defensive spells) and enchanting some of their weapons. Damage is secondary - you already have 6 guys attacking enemy mobs, so the damage part should be covered anyway. When you do encounter mobs with really high deflection (rock beetles have 30 or slashing damage reduction, for example) just make sure you have a backup weapon that ALSO gives you plenty of accuracy. In the end what matters is that your attacks are hits/crits and not grazes. You should even consider respeccing, if that's what it takes.

-Those ogres you mentioned have druids, and druids like to use a spell called "Plague of Insects" which deals raw damage over time (ie, your warriors could be naked as far as the spell is concerned). To counter that you need to either disable the druids (using either debuffs or persistent damage effects to interrupt them and prevent them from casting) or force them to waste their spells on something else (using temporary summons from spells or items like figurines - make sure you summon these away from the party).
As a last resort, you can just keep using "Suppress Affliction" effects or "Scrolls of Protection" on your guys while making sure Durance/Pallegina are spamming AoE healing spells.

-Pay attention to crafting/enchanting, especially cheap craftables (scrolls/potions) and enchants. Ogres, for example, are wilders (be sure to check your bestiary to know more about creature types that give you grief) and enchanting a weapon to grant bonus accuracy/damage vs wilders is very cheap.

 

Does White Marches increase the cap for the OC?

 

As far as i know yes, since you can do the white marches content alongside the main campaign.

 

Yes it does, which is why the order you tackle content matters. Things can get very complicated since the game lacks the linearity of BG2 and using BG1's area by area approach doesn't really work either (you need to keep coming back to certain areas/quests or enemies will be under/overpowered or quests will lack options to give you a satisfactory resolution).
If you do all the WM quests (at great difficulty) all at once, for example, the rest of the OC will be unsatisfyingly dull (a large chunk of it doesn't scale and the rewards will be very unimpressive).

My personal order is:

-All pre-Caed Nua quests/areas
-End of Act 1
-Get most of the NPCs in the OC (Sagani in Woodend Plains, Hiravias in Stormwall Gorge, Grieving Mother in Dyrford Village - you can meet all of them safely if you just stick to the roads)
-Od Nua 1-2/all Defiance Bay Quests (you get Pallegina along the way) EXCEPT The Battle of Yenwood Field
-White March 1, Stalwart/Galvino's Cabin/Durgan's Battery Exterior (doing so gives you all the rest of the NPCs, including Maneha)/Od Nua 3-6
-the areas outside of Defiance Bay/Od Nua 7-8 - DO NOT attend the Ducal Palace hearings yet
-The rest of White March 1 EXCEPT Cragholdt Bluffs, in this order: Russetwood, Durgan's Battery Interior, Longwatch Falls (if you like a reasonable challenge) EXCEPT Ice Cave.
-the rest of Od Nua (if you like a reasonable challenge)
-Longwatch Falls EXCEPT Ice Cave
-Attend Ducal Palace Hearings/End of Act 2 (note: everything beyond this point scales)
-The rest of Od Nua/All of Twin Elms Quests except point of no return i.e. DO NOT complete the last part of Court of the Penitents
-Longwatch Falls Ice Cave and White March 2
-Cragholdt Bluffs
-Mowrghek Îen
-The Battle of Yenwood Field
-Complete Court of Penitents/End of Act 3
-End of Act 4, endings

This order seems to work best in terms of scaling, story flow (supposedly there was a waiting time before you could attend the ducal hearings, supposedly a significant amount of time was to have passed between the events of WM 1 and WM2, I think it's nice that the very last sidequest you do involves your stronghold), stronghold management (lots of lull periods there for adventures/exploration), rewards (you can at least keep looking forward to getting unique loot), quest requirements and general difficulty (feel free to ignore the "excepts" if you are very, very, veeeerrryyy confident about your ability to beat end-game content at low levels).

Note that this order is also balanced around Path of the Damned Difficulty - feel free to tackle challenging content much earlier at lower difficulty settings.

Note that you can do NPC personal quests whenever, just as long as the area associated with the quest has been unlocked. Many areas also feature new content after a while once you've cleared them, if you wanna be a completionist make sure to return to previously cleared areas every new act or so.
You can do bounties whenever you want BUT it's usually a good idea to save these until AFTER you get your soulbound weapons. Bounties give you the perfect opportunity to level up many soulbound items.
Finally, if superbosses give you grief you can just save them for just before you complete the Court of Penitents quest. Very few of them scale (even if you turn on the option for it).

 

Neat, thanks. I've long since beaten the OC but I have yet to buy and play WM. Is there much to expect in the way of challenge for a L12 party with the best OC equipment?

 

Yep, especially with all the (relatively) recent changes. Lots of cheesy tactics don't work anymore - Slicken only knocks down once per cast now, Gaze of the Adragan is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be - and the WM stuff likes to throw curveballs at traditional party setups.

WM also has optional mob level scaling if you try to tackle content at higher levels, so that WM/Elmshore+ enemies will be tougher, hit harder and use higher level abilities if you want them to.